Portal A videos appeal to young voters

ADVERTISING

Published 11:05 pm, Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Image 1of/3

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 3

With a screen shot of their , "Ed Lee, 2 legit 2 Quit"", video, featuring Brian Wilson, (l to r) Nate Houghteling, partner executive director, Zach Blume, partner managing director, and Kai Hasson, via Skype, creative director, at their offices of Portal A, in the lower Haight neighborhood, in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday July 3, 2012. Portal A, a creative studio that specializes in video production and building online audiences is becoming a huge hit nationally because of their hip, irreverent tone stands out from the mainstream political ads. less

Posters of some of thier sucessfull videos are displayed at the offices of Portal A, in the lower Haight neighborhood, in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday July 3, 2012. Portal A, a creative studio that specializes in video production and building online audiences is becoming a huge hit nationally because of their hip, irreverent tone stands out from the mainstream political ads. less

Posters of some of thier sucessfull videos are displayed at the offices of Portal A, in the lower Haight neighborhood, in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday July 3, 2012. Portal A, a creative studio that ... more

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Image 3 of 3

(left) Nate Houghteling, partner executive director and Zach Blume, partner managing director, at their offices of Portal A, in the lower Haight neighborhood, in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday July 3, 2012. Portal A, a creative studio that specializes in video production and building online audiences is becoming a huge hit nationally because of their hip, irreverent tone stands out from the mainstream political ads. less

(left) Nate Houghteling, partner executive director and Zach Blume, partner managing director, at their offices of Portal A, in the lower Haight neighborhood, in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday July 3, 2012. ... more

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Portal A videos appeal to young voters

1 / 3

Back to Gallery

Three East Bay pals since elementary school have created funny online videos, from "Don't Stop Believing," an homage to the 2010 San Francisco Giants' World Series run, to "Ed Lee is 2 Legit 2 Quit," the video backing Lee's run for San Francisco mayor that married the charms of the rapper Hammer and bearded Giants closer Brian Wilson.

Now the twentysomething principals at the Haight-Ashbury firm Portal A are in growing demand nationally to create other viral political ads, largely because their irreverent tone doesn't sound as sonorous or strident as many of the other ads being created.

Their rise shows the political value in sounding different from the 72 hours of video that is uploaded to YouTube every minute. That's increasingly valuable in a tight election year when the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case has created a torrent of unlimited corporate, union and individual spending on political ads.

"The old way is to interrupt someone with a 30-second ad and spew your message at them," said Dan Greenberg, CEO of Sharethrough, a San Francisco video advertising platform.

But Portal A is on the cutting edge "of creating content that you want to share with other people. People, particularly young people, don't want to share most political ads," said Greenberg, lauded as an industry leader by both Ad Age and Forbes magazines.

Exhibit A was a line from the Lee video. Few old-school campaigns would describe their candidate as "only 5-foot-5, but he gets s- done."

"What these guys have figured out is not only how to create political ads that are worth sharing, but how to share them to a wide audience through Facebook" and other social media, said Theo Yedinsky, a veteran national social media strategist who has worked with Portal A through Oakland's North Social firm.

Even edgier was the ad Portal A created this spring for Proposition 29, the California ballot measure that would have created a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes primarily to fund treatment of tobacco-related illness. Tobacco companies spent more than $40 million against Prop. 29, which failed.

In a bare-knuckled, satirical tone, several Californians explain why they back Big Tobacco. One, an overalls-wearing farmer, looks into the camera and deadpans: "I support Big Tobacco because they killed my wife. And that's one less mouth to feed."

Sitting in Portal A's office recently, managing director Zach Blume smiled slightly and acknowledged, "Yeah, that was pretty close to the line."

Young voters in particular want authenticity, not just the same tired partisan rhetoric. "People my age," said the 27-old Blume, "don't watch political ads."

Creative director Kai Hasson, 28, said some people were critical of the Lee ad because it didn't spell out his policy positions.

"But that's not what we're trying to do," Hasson added. "It was more, 'Let's have a good time.' If you look at all the political commercials, why does it all have to be boring or negative?

"Creatively, we try to have an attitude that we're not going to get bogged down in the rules that were set up by the political system," he said. "We stick to what we like."

Videos to votes

If young voters do interact with political video content, studies show that they are more likely to talk about the issue and ultimately vote, said Abby Kiesa, a researcher for Tufts University'sCenter for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which studies youth voting.

"A quirky video could spark a conversation," Kiesa said. "Or it could encourage someone to research the topic more."

Investor Conway, who was an early backer of Google and other tech firms, was looking for a viral video last fall when he was working with the independent group backing Lee.

He didn't tell Portal A what to say. Twitter founder and Lee backer Biz Stone suggested that the ad use the campaign's "Fear the Mustache" theme.

With that, Conway offered Portal A some viral video chum: "We have access to Hammer."

"I'd have been happy with 50,000" viewings on YouTube, Conway said. The Lee video has been viewed more than 480,000 times there and stirred a national buzz about the video and about Lee.

This summer, Portal A will release a video in support of San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation, the fledgling advocacy group of 300 technology firms that Conway chairs.

Portal A also has agreed to create a series of videos in support of the Steyer-backed Proposition 39, which would require multistate businesses to calculate their California income tax liability based on the percentage of their sales in California.

Commercial ads, too

Politics is only one of the firm's interests. It recently drew national attention for its Banana Republicfashion ad, which was shot on an airplane. With Microsoft, Portal A just created an online, behind-the-scenes documentary series on a San Francisco technology startup called "Behind the Launch."

"People are coming to us constantly and asking for a 'viral video,' " Blume said. "It's an interesting dynamic for us. It isn't as simple as 1-2-3, make a viral video."

While it's hard to recapture a viral phenomenon, Portal A has become adept enough at distributing videos through social networks that attracting large numbers of viewers has "become somewhat of a science," Blume said. "So it's become much less incumbent on creating a phenomenon."

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.